Quintana Roo Real Estate Now Under Money Laundering Scrutiny

Cancún, Mexico — The acquisition of coastal properties has recently been included within the list of activities vulnerable to money laundering in Mexico, a move that is expected to impact real estate costs and further complicate purchase-sale processes for foreigners in states like Quintana Roo.

Fausto Adrián Bañuelos, a lawyer specializing in real estate law and money laundering, explained that the inclusion of this activity in Article 17 of the Law for the Prevention and Identification of Operations with Illicitly Sourced Funds dates only from June of this year. The measure has yet to be fully regulated, creating even greater uncertainty in states such as Quintana Roo, where the real estate industry is the second most productive sector at the state level, trailing only behind tourism.

“Persons acting on behalf of trusts are performing a vulnerable activity; in the case of Quintana Roo and all border and coastal zones, if a foreigner wants to acquire a property, they cannot do so except through one option, the most common being a restricted zone trust,” he explained.

What is foreseeable in advance, he said, is the additional cost that will have to be disbursed to comply with all the obligations implied by anti-money laundering laws. He gave the example of a retired American couple who own a vacation residence in Cancún. Given their status as senior citizens, they would have difficulty carrying out the notifications, verifications, registrations, and other procedures required to comply with the law, which will necessarily imply the hiring of notaries or administrative personnel to handle such obligations.

The impact could be even more considerable, as regardless of the regulation of this new addition to the anti-money laundering law, substantial fines for those who commit omissions in its compliance have already come into effect, which can reach up to 1.2 million pesos.

As a result, the expert led a talk among members of the Employers' Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex) in Cancún, as a training session on the new requirements and obligated subjects that have been incorporated into the anti-money laundering law, to avoid falling into omissions and incurring multi-million peso fines.